Hunger
by Ekhi
Summary: He blinked in the darkness, his back against the metallic wall of the wagon. His left shoulder was used as a pillow by his brother, who finally was sleeping. (Pre-Ep. 4x16)


_This short OS was written for the "Gareth Fest" contest organized by the spanish forum "Open! Walkers Inside" for Andrew J West's birthday (is today)._

_**Disclaimer:** Neither the serie or the comics are mine… I just do this for fun, entertainment and because I need to put my energy on something._

_English is not my mother tongue, is not even my second language so… I'm sorry for any mistakes that might appear._

_Hope you enjoy it anyway._

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><p>He closed his eyes. He closed his eyes and tried not to hear the whimpering of the women, the teeth chattering for the missing clothes, the stinky odor of humanity and sweat, but mostly he tried hard to forget the emptiness he was feeling on the bottom of his stomach.<p>

He blinked in the darkness, his back against the metallic wall of the wagon. His left shoulder was used as a pillow by his brother, who finally was sleeping.

He couldn't sleep, no when his mother was still missing on the wagon and his stomach had done enough rambling (it had no more energy for doing so). It almost looked like he was eating himself from the inside, like those creatures that they worked so hard for putting them in the other side of the walls.

He rest his nape against the wall and took a deep breath, filling his lungs and stomach with air, trying to fool them both even when his mind knew exactly when was the last time that he ate something.

He licked his dry lips, feeling the cracked skin under his rough tongue. He closed his eyes remembering family meals, those dinners that he tried not to take the girl of the moment to, those huge meals that wanted to destroy his pants on Christmas, Thanksgiving…

In that moment he could kill for just a plate of any of them, for a few turkey crumbs, for just a spoonful of potato soup that his mother used to prepare.

He tightened his lips and his eyelids, doing his best for keeping the tears at bay. He wasn't going to cry, no with his brother at arm's length, no when his mother was suffering God knew what because of those bastards that…

His fingernails digged against her hand's skin, focusing towards his palms the anger that was threating to eat him alive faster than the hunger itself.

He could feel a blood drop squeezing his way through his fingers and he moved his hand to his eyelevel to see it.

It was hard to see nothing in the darkness but as the hours passed by, days, his eyes were adjusting to it, embracing it and losing that irrational fear that any human had towards it.

It could keep him hidden from strange eyes, protect him of them. It was like a white canvas for him, eating every single color with time: blood's red, the yellow and purple from the beatings, the green of his mother's eyes… It has taken them all and he pretended that he could imagine them all in that gloom.

It let him take the hand to his lips and seal the wound with them, tasting the metallic blood, the sweat from his hand, the dirt that has been attached to his skin… But it was better than just the air.

That luck of light allowed a single tear to roll down his cheek from his almost dry eyes, a single tear that painted a visible path on his dirty cheek. That darkness let him bite forcefully his lower lip and swallow hard his own dry spit that it only provoked more his empty stomach, twisting like a vice searching for more.

His body tensed when he heard the rattling of the wagon lock, the door opening. He blinked, putting his arm in front of his eyes stopping the light from the outside; he narrowed his eyes and tried to see something from above it.

A shadow fell at his feet and the darkness swallow them all again with a new screeching from the door being closed.

"Mom?" He whispered with a rough, torn, raspy voice.

He extended his arm towards where she was supposed to be. Trembling fingers touched his, getting a hold of his hand, helping herself towards his.

The woman gripped his fingers, arm, shoulder, till she could touch her son's face.

"My son…" Whispered the woman in a soft voice, trying not to cry feeling the fresh wounds in his son's face. "What have they done to you?" She asked with her forehead against Gareth's temple, reaching for him and Alex that was still sleeping.

"Are you alright?" Asked Gareth touching her mother's face with fear of what might he find in there, but he knew the worst couldn't be felt under his fingertips on her cheeks or in her unruly hair. No, her wounds where way deeper down her skin and some of them where not visible to the eye or daylight.

"Now, I'm alright" She assured him kissing his eyebrow, adjusting her body to his, sharing the body heat that the filthy clothes didn't let them create by themselves.

Mary sought his hand again and tangled their fingers together. She drew a long strangled sigh.

Gareth's stomach growled again in the darkness, her mother gave his hand a hard squeeze.

"I miss Thanksgiving turkey…" Whispered, closing his eyes, his head against his mother's. He licked his lips, his thumb touched her mother's knuckles rhythmically, like always, absently.

"We will have turkey for dinner again, sweetheart."

Gareth bit his sardonic smile, holding his own head for not moving negatively.

His hope was almost missing; he couldn't imagine himself trying food again, ever. Not at least in this life, not at least as a living human being.

"I'm sure, mom" He kissed her mother's hair carefully and heard her smiling.

Alex readjusted his body against his in a little snore. Gareth hold a snort hearing him.

"Don't forget the potato soup." He asked her, keeping up the fantasy, the same as every day, but as the day passed by, it become more cruel, grotesque, harmful, it was getting complicated to not lose their minds and lives on it.

"Your favorite…"

Mary's voice reached his ears very softly. Gareth could hear the change on her breathing, telling him that she was almost asleep. The tiredness, the pain and the hunger helped a lot with that nowadays.

But not all of them could sleep. Not anymore.

He took a deep breath and tried to remember the taste of the first apples that they finally had from the apple trees in Terminus. His tongue peeked through his teeth, wetting poorly the cracked skin.

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><p><em>Thinking about what I might write down for the GF I remembered Gareth's look at the church when he was talking to Rick and he said something like "you don't know what is to be hungry…" His face, the way he said it, that was the reason I wrote this down in the end, trying to "give" a little glimpse of Gareth's past in Terminus.<em>

_My apologies again for any grammar, misspelling, meaning mistakes. _


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